The Name of God

What do you invoke God's name for? Meaning, what do you specifically pray that He will do and say "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost"? Biden apparently crossed himself in connection with his support of abortion, thus calling on the name of the triune God as a support for murdering innocent children. I agree with the Spanish Bishop who said it was sacrilege to invoke the Lord to support a grave sin.

I would hope we are more careful, but are we? Do we examine what we do and what we connect with the various "signs of the faith" that we do? We might not be as public as a politician, but each of us does give an example of Christ in our life whenever we are in the public sphere. That example may be a good one, or it may be a bad one, but there is always an example.

This is, really, the heart of the second commandment: not to take the "name" of the Lord God in vain (which includes much more than saying a phrase with "God" at the beginning and "damn" at the end. It involves taking the Lord's name upon us in our baptism and yet living as though we have nothing to do with Him. Every time we cross ourselves and say the Holy Name, we are reminding ourselves of the triune God whom we serve, as well as our baptism, which is the place where that divine name was given to us.

This means that everthing we do is in the context of being "in Christ", and when we cross ourselves it brings it into the public sphere so everyone can know it and see it. Acknowledging our Catholic faith is a requirement that our Lord puts on every one of us. Therefore, let us each be extra careful in the things we do that invoke the name of the Lord.